Two and a half months ago, Yosef Zissels sent me a letter. Zissels is a veteran figure of Ukrainian Jewry, a former Soviet dissident, and I met him personally in Kyiv during my trip to Ukraine last year. I chose not to write about it immediately, preferring to let the text settle, reread it and verify its strongest points. What emerged is a document that deserves attention because it does not only call Russia into question, it also challenges part of Ukrainian society itself. The letter, written in October 2025 and titled “Self-denial and self-sacrifice,” is a harsh, almost ruthless statement.

Its central point is this: before asking more of the West, Ukrainians should ask themselves whether they are truly doing everything they can. Zissels defines the conflict as an “existential” war, part of a broader confrontation between the authoritarian and democratic worlds. From this premise he draws a radical conclusion: a war of this kind cannot be sustained only by those fighting at the front or by a particularly motivated minority. It must transform the whole of society. For this reason, he writes that, in his view, only about 30 percent of adults are truly orienting their lives toward Ukraine’s victory, and he goes so far as to ask whether the country is preparing its children and grandchildren, boys and girls, for possible military service.

When I interviewed him in Kyiv on May 7, 2025, Zissels had already told me that Ukraine, in order to survive, would have to become “a militarized country, like Israel,” and that boys and girls alike would have to grow up with that awareness. In the same interview, he added that many Ukrainians had not yet fully understood the nature of the conflict and were still hoping for a miracle. The letter he sent me develops that same idea in an even sharper form.

Zissels touches a real nerve in the Ukrainian war: mobilization. As early as........

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